A nice perk of becoming a Salesforce MVP this year was reserved setting access to some of the keynotes. In my case I got front row seating to the Satya Nadella keynote. Right in line behind Tony Prophet, who some of you may remember from last years main keynote.

Dreamboat

Dreamforce is a pretty full on conference. You can be booked up from breakfast to as late as you want with meetings, sessions, keynotes, and after hours functions. This usually means waking up sometime around 6 am, maybe grabbing a quick breakfast, and then disembarking to the first meeting of the day. Then staggering back in to get some sleep before doing it all again tomorrow (assuming you make it back before midnight).

As far as accommodation goes, I'd have to rate the Dreamboat as among the most impressive I've seen. With multiple swimming pools, a gym, theater, basket ball court, and casino (not operational) all on board, there was no shortage of things to do. If only you can find the time. I don't think I made it to the Constellation Lounge during daylight hours and was surprised to see what it looked like during daylight hours.

Plus the views. Open the curtains before leaving for the morning to catch the sun coming up behind the bay bridge. Then see the silhouette of the Golden Gate bridge as the sun sets. Then the city skyline in the evenings.

AT&T do a 1.5GB nano sim card with 1.5GB of data for $45 USD. Combined with the conference WiFi, it was easily enough to get through and stay connected.

You can't give session feedback on sessions held in the DevZone theaters as you can't scan into them like you can with the breakout rooms.

If you're a developer, ignore the advice to leave your laptop behind. How are you going to complete the Mini Hacks or try anything out as you go if you don't have your tools on hand? My Surface Pro 3 was really useful. I could knock out the mini hacks, take down more complicated notes, do on the spot demos, ... Only catch for me was needing to change my date time settings to PST to connect to the WiFi. Go figure.

If you can time it right, drop ship things to the FedEx office at 726 Market St. It is only a quick walk from the conference and you can get a "Hold at FedEx location" when shipping.

Got a spare 30 minutes. Make a quick excursion to the Expo in Moscone North.